Some Abraham Lincoln, Some- Robert Browning, and –some Inigo Montoya

I had dinner this week with someone I once described as winsome, and in my reading came across the word fulsome. While it seems obvious that the word irksome means that the situation being described is one that is full of annoyance or being irked, or even tiresome (which describes something that causes one to tire), that does not mean that a toothsome grin means that the grin is full of teeth. The suffix –some can sometimes be troublesome (which does mean full of trouble or difficulty.) Whereas the prefix some- usually means “at an unspecified increment” the suffix doesn’t always appear to be a suffix of causation.

Even the word some sometimes means different things. While its central meaning is “being an undetermined or unspecified one” as used in “somebody stole my cookie”, it can also be used to describe the opposite when used of plural nouns “some days I just don’t want a cookie.” There are a number of other uses, too. The word some has some (meaning “remarkable”) kind of variety, and has been used in that sense since 1808, mostly as an American colloquial.

The prefix some- (as in someone, somebody, sometime, someday, someone) indicates uncertainty or describes something that is undetermined. You can find the same words in Middle English, but they were written as two words until the 17^th to 19^th centuries. Even the word somewhen, a rare word (I do not remember having heard or read it), has been used since the 19^th century in combination with more common compounds, as Robert Browning did in line 505 of “Mr. Sludge, ‘The Medium’”:

Out of the drift of facts, whereby you learn

What some was, somewhere, somewhen, somewhy?

Wikipedia cites several recent uses, so maybe it is once again becoming a useful word.

But then there are the troublesome and irksome suffixes. The easy one to understand is the meaning of “causing”, which is the sense used in troublesome and irksome. But there is also a collective use of the suffix, as in twosome or threesome, which means “group of”.

And then there are the words that don’t follow either convention, like winsome, toothsome, and fulsome. Or, as Inigo Montoya said in the movie The Princess Bride, “I do not think it means what you think it means.” While they technically mean "full of", such a definition requires more explanation and research.

Winsome is an old word, used in English since before the year 900. It is a good word, meaning sweetly or innocently charming, and similar in meaning to the word engaging. That’s a much nicer meaning than “some win.”  In Old English it was spelled wynsum, and combined the Old English word for joy (wyn) with the Old English word sum, which somewhere and somewhen became spelled some, probably so it would not be confused with the word that indicates the total of a series of numbers or quantities, or aggregate. So technically winsome means full of wyn. 

Toothsome, which I always thought meant showing some teeth (as in toothsome grin), actually is defined as pleasing or desirable, and is often used of that which passes through the teeth (food). It came to English in the 1560s, but it was used ten years earlier in the figurative sense of “attractive.” It has also been used to describe someone who is voluptuous or sexually alluring. I think I will begin using this word more; it will likely be misunderstood by others, and I always enjoy driving people to the dictionary. 

Fulsome is the word that got me started on this quest. It means offensive to good taste, especially in being excessive or overdone. In that respect it almost means the opposite of what it sounds like it means (the kind of word I like – you can use it correctly but sound like you’re giving a compliment: “That was a fulsome dinner!”) In Middle English the word was simply a compound of the words full and some. In the 1200s it mean abundant or full (full of full?), but by the mid-1300s developed a meaning of plump or well-fed, then by the 1640s meant overgrown or overfed. It was not far or long (the 1660s) until it widened its meaning to anything offensive to good taste or good manners. One source suggested it might have developed the negative meaning from its similarity of "ful-" to the word foul, an interesting speculation that makes it easier to remember its primary meaning. 

Finally, there is also the use of the word “some” in the phrase “get some”, meaning “have sexual intercourse.” The use in this sense can be found as far back as 1899 in a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln from circa 1840. Or is it somewhen 1840?